Chapter 11 Shadows of the past
Elara’s POV
The plan today is to stay back and sort out the information I just collected from Damien’s computer but he is insisting that we go out for dress shopping.
Damien doesn’t speak the entire drive.
He sits beside me in the car, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on his thigh, perfectly composed. But I can feel the tension radiating off him like the calm before a storm. The air between us is thick enough to choke on.
Outside, Chicago unfurls in sleek glass and steel, sunlight bouncing off skyscrapers that look too proud to bend. Inside the car is silent. I don’t dare ask where we’re going. I already know that it's another round of expensive distractions meant to keep me busy and quiet.
If he thinks he can end my questions with silk and diamonds then he doesn't know what's coming.
The car pulls up in front of a boutique I’ve never heard of, a place that screams of luxury, fashion, and class. Two doormen open the glass doors before we reach them and as we step inside, smells of leather, perfume, and power hits my nose.
“Pick any dress you want,” Damien says, his voice even but distant. “You will need more clothes suitable for public appearances.”
I nod stiffly and start checking them out. I scroll through elegant fabrics, latest designs and fashion model but non suits my tastes. Everything here screams luxury and imprisonment.
A woman approaches with a professional smile. “Mr. and Mrs. Cade. Welcome back.”
Damien doesn’t respond. He just gives a curt nod, his attention fixed elsewhere.
I take a deep breath and move toward a rack of evening dresses. The fabrics shimmering under the light with pretty colors. Blush, ivory, black, emerald.
Then I something else catches my attention.
An elegant gown in the color of spilled wine. It is everything I admire. Bold, sleek, daring without being too flashy. The kind of dress that demands attention but doesn’t beg for it. I pick it.
immediately, my fingers grazing the smooth fabric.
“This one,” I murmur.
When I turn, Damien is already looking at me. But the expression on his face stops me cold.
His face is as hard as a rock, his eyes fixed on the dress, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he lost his control.
“Put it back,” he bellows.
I blink. “What?”
“I said, put it back.” his tone this time leaves no room for misunderstanding. But somewhere there is a crack. A tremor beneath the authority.
I dismiss it. “It’s just a dress.”
His gaze snaps to mine, hard and burning. “I said not that one.”
The saleswoman glances between us, uncertain. “Is there a problem, sir?”
Damien’s jaw tightens. “We’re fine. Leave us.”
She nods quickly and disappears, leaving the two of us standing in the center of the boutique, tension curling like smoke.
I clutch the gown to my chest, my heart pounding. “You can’t keep ordering me around like a child. You said to choose and I choose this.”
His voice drops lower. “You can't have that one.”
“Why? Because it’s red? Because it might make me look like someone you can’t control?”
He steps closer. “Because it belonged to someone who did the same thing you’re doing now.”
The words slam into me. I frown, confused. “What do you mean?”
His gaze doesn’t waver, but he looks broken. Something I’ve never seen before. “She kept digging where she shouldn’t have. She wanted answers that weren’t hers to have. And that’s why I keep warning you to stop before you end up like her.”
The room seems to tilt.
My fingers loosen around the gown. “What are you talking about?”
“Enough.” His tone turns cold again. “We’re done here.”
But his voice isn’t as steady as he wants it to be. I hear the pain, the guilt behind it. And for the first time, Damien Cade looks human. Not untouchable, or invincible. Just a man haunted by something he does not say.
He turns away before I can speak again, gesturing to one of the clerks. “Have the black and emerald dresses sent to the mansion.”
I stand frozen, the red gown still in my hand. The clerk hurries forward to take it from me, and I let go, my pulse still thrumming in my ears.
When Damien finally looks back at me, the walls are up again. Every trace of vulnerability gone, replaced by the cold, composed mask I know too well.
“Let’s go,” he says.
The drive back is worse. The only sound in the car is the hum of the engine and the faint tap of my nails against the door handle.
I don’t ask who “she” was. I don’t have to. His reaction told me everything. I understand that whoever she was, she mattered. And now she’s gone.
But what does he mean that I remind him of her?
By the time we return to the mansion, my thoughts are a storm. I’m supposed to be focused on the flash drive hidden in my room, the files that link my father to his family. But now, there’s another mystery threading through it all. Someone who died because she got too close to Damien.
And he’s warning me not to make the same mistake.
The moment we step inside, Damien disappears down the hall without a word. Adrian appears from somewhere, and nods in my direction as if to say don’t push him right now.
I nod back and return to my room, kick off my heels, and sink into the armchair near the window. Outside, dusk bleeds into the horizon, painting the sky in shades of purple and red.
That color again. Red.
The dress flashes in my mind, the way his face changed when he saw it, the way his voice cracked when he said, before you end up like her.
Who was she?
I can’t shake the image of Damien’s eyes when he said it. That wasn’t the look of anger. It was grief.
Pain buried under discipline. Regret disguised as control.
And it scares me that I saw it, because it makes him too real, like a human. When he should have been a demon.
– – –
By nightfall, I turn on my laptop, the one I brought before moving in, and open a browser. My fingers hover over the keys. As i type Damien Cade fiancée and hit enter.
Hundreds of results appear. Articles, gossip columns, old interviews. I scroll until I find something interesting. A headline from six years ago.
“Tragedy Strikes: Damien Cade’s Fiancée Found Dead in Apparent Accident.”
My breath catches. I click it open.
The article is short, too short. A few lines about a car crash outside the city, no foul play suspected. No details about who was driving, no follow-up statements, no mention of the investigation. The comments are turned off.
I dig deeper, searching through archives, social pages, anything that might hold more. But every article says the same thing: Fiancée. Accident. Tragedy.
And then… nothing. Like someone had wiped her from the world.
I find a picture buried in a forgotten gossip post. A woman with soft eyes and a smile too alive to belong to a ghost. She’s wearing a red gown—the same shade as the one Damien stopped me from choosing.
My pulse quickens.
She’d been investigating him too. Or his family. Or even both.
I lean back in my chair, heart racing. “What really happened to you?” I whisper.
I should stop.
But I won’t.
Because now I know Damien isn’t just hiding my father’s truth, he’s hiding hers.
And whatever connects them is the key to unraveling everything.